Bitcoin Miners Buckle Under April Price Pressure, But JP Morgan Analyst Says MARA, CleanSpark Held Strong

JP Morgan analyst Reginald L. Smith observed that Bitcoin BTC/USD miners saw mixed performance in early April. A drop in the average Bitcoin price during the first half of the month strained mining economics despite solid operational gains in March.

Per Smith, pure-play miners like MARA Holdings, Inc. MARA and CleanSpark, Inc. CLSK outpaced Bitcoin’s price gains, while firms with exposure to high-performance computing lagged behind.

The analyst notes that the average Bitcoin price in early April was around $82,600, down 3% from March. It dipped to $75,000 but later recovered to about $85,000.

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Smith said March was a strong operational month, with U.S.-listed miners adding around 15 EH/s and increasing coin production, partly due to easier month-over-month comparisons. Smith highlights that this was led by IREN Limited IREN and Hut 8 Corp. HUT.

However, the overall network hash rate grew faster than U.S. miners’ expansion, and Bitcoin's average price dipped in the first half of April, putting pressure on mining profitability.

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Smith also estimated that U.S.-listed miners are now trading at roughly 1.2 times their share of the four-year block reward opportunity, down from recent highs and the lowest in over two years.

According to Smith, MARA Holdings and Bitdeer Technologies Group BTDR were the best and worst-performing stocks over the first two weeks of April, respectively.

Other firms that delivered weaker performance than their peers are TeraWulf Inc. WULF, IREN Limited and Riot Platforms, Inc. RIOT, owing to their high-performance computing exposure.